the maoster:
My planner sometimes tries to tell me what he’s got planned for me all week, I simply put a finger in each ear and go "na na na na " until he stops talking. I don’t want to know.
I also don’t do stress and I reckon that as a day man any hold up would have me frothing at the mouth whereas as a tramper the only difference a hold up means to me is that the view from my bedroom window changes on a night.
Exactly right, I just like to.know what’s on today and the re.load tomorrow.
If you know the week’s plans it just puts you under pressure…(which is why they do it btw ! )
How do they know what unforseens may or may not crop up in those 5 days …A good traffic planner is one who reacts and adapts, not one who chucks a load of tasks at you, and then starts asking questions when they find out you are not on their planned schedule targets…so basically my motto is ■■■■ em, plan around the situations that occur. .
toby1234abc:
Elsa Dad, you mentioned an urge to try European driving.
The novelty wears off when you are in a motorway service area for 45 hour off.
The 45 hour legal break can be more if waiting for load.
On European expect to be weekended.
Fines are court deposits.
Fines have to be paid in full where they stop you, some fines can be up to 20,000 euros.
A trivial offence in the UK is not abroad.
On your daily or weekly rest expect to be surrounded by 400 Eastern European trucks of which run their engines 24 hours a day to charge batteries.
There are truck bans to contend with, some can be four days, religious festivals, national holidays.
And regional holidays.
Bans may end at 22.00 or midnight so that means you can now drive ten hours and a 15 hour shift to get the ferry.
You are now on night work all week.
Think for me its just be able to say you done it, after nearly 30 years of full time class 1 driving, been and done most things but feel like I missed a big chapter in my driving career.
But as you mention above toby, there is a lot of downsides to driving abroad
toby1234abc:
Elsa Dad, you mentioned an urge to try European driving.
The novelty wears off when you are in a motorway service area for 45 hour off.
The 45 hour legal break can be more if waiting for load.
On European expect to be weekended.
Fines are court deposits.
Fines have to be paid in full where they stop you, some fines can be up to 20,000 euros.
A trivial offence in the UK is not abroad.
On your daily or weekly rest expect to be surrounded by 400 Eastern European trucks of which run their engines 24 hours a day to charge batteries.
There are truck bans to contend with, some can be four days, religious festivals, national holidays.
And regional holidays.
Bans may end at 22.00 or midnight so that means you can now drive ten hours and a 15 hour shift to get the ferry.
You are now on night work all week.
Think for me its just be able to say you done it, after nearly 30 years of full time class 1 driving, been and done most things but feel like I missed a big chapter in my driving career.
But as you mention above toby, there is a lot of downsides to driving abroad
I reckon there are more upsides than downsides, despite Toby’s negative views on it.
toby1234abc:
Elsa Dad, you mentioned an urge to try European driving.
The novelty wears off when you are in a motorway service area for 45 hour off.
The 45 hour legal break can be more if waiting for load.
On European expect to be weekended.
Fines are court deposits.
Fines have to be paid in full where they stop you, some fines can be up to 20,000 euros.
A trivial offence in the UK is not abroad.
On your daily or weekly rest expect to be surrounded by 400 Eastern European trucks of which run their engines 24 hours a day to charge batteries.
There are truck bans to contend with, some can be four days, religious festivals, national holidays.
And regional holidays.
Bans may end at 22.00 or midnight so that means you can now drive ten hours and a 15 hour shift to get the ferry.
You are now on night work all week.
Perhaps you should move to a company that doesn’t weekend you abroad, we’he had three this year.
I’d like to say fines shouldn’t happen, but there’s always some rule about wearing red underpants on Thursday that no one knew about. A decent firm will cough up the dough and on your way in a couple of hours.
Only about 20% of our nights out are in the cab, usually surrounded by an en suite and a restaurant downstairs.
Nice planners will keep the trucks UK side for holidays, explaining to the customer that it costs more usually sorts that one out.
Nights…got me there Toby. Boat lands at Esbjerg or Cuxhaven late then it’s go, no hanging around. But then one of mine got the shock of his life when he rang at 5 pm having finished at 8 am to tell me he had had no sleep all day and I told him to go and book a hotel for the night. Phone went very quiet…
So Toby, some is good, some is bad. Like I keep saying, you aren’t a tree, move!
I like a mix of all, just doing one type isn’t for me. A nice long euro run especially somewhere I’ve not been before is great, I try & have a wander about a nice town or village & if warm a dip in a lake, river or sea on route.
It doesn’t always work but I really try not to do back to back long euro runs, a wk or more in the middle of back in my own bed is great too & a few wks of just away one night is usually a good one too.
it will always boil down to hat suits you best at whatever period of your life at the time.
unless your a pleb that is working in a job that you hate as you cant find anything else.
a year after passing my test,then being mad for tar,i did 4 back to back trips to saudi.
the option of european work came along,and it was a different adventure without the magnified grief of heading to istanbul and beyond again.
it was a new adventure and still challenging for years although the roads closet to the ferries became 2nd nature,there was always somewhere else to see further away.
i tried legal agency plobbing for a cpl of years and just couldnt handle the fact that i found it so demeaning and an insult to my intelligence,so a happy medium is working for myself doing flat to the mat trip money runs.
i dont work 24/7 and its a variety and mishmash of working at home,or a blast away for a cpl of days or a week.
as your life changes,the work that suits you also changes.
ive never fancied tanker work,live animals or car transporters as you couldnt pay me enough to want to drive them though i worked for a while doing live shellfish in tanks from eire to europe but it was still a pain cleaning the tanks and seeing the oxygen was still keeping the poor wee things alive.
do what suits you best,and dont be afraid to change direction as your circumstances change.
toby1234abc:
Elsa Dad, you mentioned an urge to try European driving.
The novelty wears off when you are in a motorway service area for 45 hour off.
The 45 hour legal break can be more if waiting for load.
On European expect to be weekended.
Fines are court deposits.
Fines have to be paid in full where they stop you, some fines can be up to 20,000 euros.
A trivial offence in the UK is not abroad.
On your daily or weekly rest expect to be surrounded by 400 Eastern European trucks of which run their engines 24 hours a day to charge batteries.
There are truck bans to contend with, some can be four days, religious festivals, national holidays.
And regional holidays.
Bans may end at 22.00 or midnight so that means you can now drive ten hours and a 15 hour shift to get the ferry.
You are now on night work all week.
Come on Tobes, be honest. Despite all that we still loved doing it.
Better than getting up in the middle of the night to start a long shift fighting the traffic on the highways and bye ways of the UK, day in and day out.
Harry Monk:
…When I started (1986) and particularly where I lived (east Kent) it would have been 100x harder to find a UK-only job than continental work. I only took my HGV lessons and test because there was so much continental work around, in my first ever job I took a trailer to Manchester, then shipped out empty to load in northern France, then the following week I went to Italy, then did Italy every week for the next five years or so. And there were dozens of local firms doing that sort of work back in the day…
Romacs Harry?? My personal preference was always distance work around Europe. Either weekly up and down to Italy, Spain etc, or just multi dropping around Europe. Away for a couple of weeks and back for a long weekend was the ideal. Customs procedures and border controls were just part of the job and probably added a couple of days over all to a trip. I really enjoyed it. Each to their own, but I would take distance work every time over local / day work.
trucken:
Distance work, tramping, as I’d get bored going to the same places everyday.
The job I do now would have been my idea of hell 25 years ago, tip at the same place every day, but you change as you get older and besides which there is virtually no long haul continental work any more so distance work really means Bristol to Manchester then London then Liverpool and that’s just as boring to me.
I’m the other way round. Used to do the same area every day and liked the certainty of it, but now its nearly all farm deliveries all over the country, wouldn’t want to go back to the old routine. I think you used to do the odd load for us out of Meldreth, via Gregorys.
4 to 5 drops a day local and that is great for me,never go over my hours,never get any infringements,good for me,although a bit boring,but you can’t have everything
bullitt:
Romacs Harry?? My personal preference was always distance work around Europe. Either weekly up and down to Italy, Spain etc, or just multi dropping around Europe. Away for a couple of weeks and back for a long weekend was the ideal. Customs procedures and border controls were just part of the job and probably added a couple of days over all to a trip. I really enjoyed it. Each to their own, but I would take distance work every time over local / day work.
Yes, Romac. We used to do a lovely job at certain times of year, out to the Ruhr valley to tip, then I would phone in from a payphone to say I was empty and they would say “find a Telex machine and phone us with the number” (showing my age here! ) and then a few hours later a telex would arrive with 12-15 collections of wine at small producers in the Mosel Valley. This would take me 2-3 days, just bimbling around the countryside. At every collection the cases of wine were handballed on, at every collection I mucked in and gave a hand, at every collection I was given a bottle or two as a token of appreciation.
Also used to get lots of cheap ■■■■ out of street vending machines by using 3x British one shilling coins instead of 3x German one Deutschemark coins.
Longest i do is 2 or 3 hours up the road then back which i quite like as gets you out the way for most of the day with the radio your only distraction. Other days could do 4/5 runs local which is not bad also as you are nearer home and in your own backyard.
I get a mix of both which suits as not sure which one i would choose to do permanently if i had to. Probably opt for the longer runs
trucken:
Distance work, tramping, as I’d get bored going to the same places everyday.
The job I do now would have been my idea of hell 25 years ago, tip at the same place every day, but you change as you get older and besides which there is virtually no long haul continental work any more so distance work really means Bristol to Manchester then London then Liverpool and that’s just as boring to me.
Lurgan Co.Armagh to Huntingdon/Soham or Bridgewater a right wee tramp Harry lad!!![emoji6]
I cant remember ever doing local work…when i first started with a real haulage company…it was ship to shore moving timber, after a month…i went on general…first job…Liverpool…then onwards and upwards…as i progressed i wanted further afield, so i learned the uk, then europe, that wasnt enough, so went scandinavia, then middle east…then back to european again…this suits me, even today…cant remember ever touching local work or multiple drops…i wouldnt last the day…i like a load on my back for days on end…uk to Istanbul was a regular run…till i wanted to go further east…that too served its purpose… its a learning curve, and i certainly learned a great deal…so you can stick your multiples…its a no no for me.
Harry Monk:
Also used to get lots of cheap ■■■■ out of street vending machines by using 3x British one shilling coins instead of 3x German one Deutschemark coins.
rob22888:
Working days, locals are defiantly my preference. Can’t be doing with the stress of being sent miles away and then worrying about getting back through the M6 chaos etc. for a decent time.
Some weeks I only do around 500km all week and that suits me just fine!
+1. I deliver to around 5 of our branches a day Mon-Fri (all no further than 100 miles away).
Start at 6am, and I am often the last back at around 3.30 pm. Part time steering attendant for £29k a year
I prefer long days. I’d rather do a 15 hour day in Manchester and get a night out of it then doing a 12 hour day and drive home again. Maximum hours means more money in my bank account.
)
…A good traffic planner is one who reacts and adapts, not one who chucks a load of tasks at you, and then starts asking questions when they find out you are not on their planned schedule targets…so basically my motto is ■■■■ em, plan around the situations that occur. . 
